According to modernization theory, economic growth paves the way for the development of a middle class from which universalism and democracy will engender. Based on the Western European experience, this theory sees modernization and democracy as two sides of the same coin. Unlike in Western Europe, however, the fledgling Southeast Asian middle classes are largely the result of state-centred capitalist economic development. It is argued that a middle class created under such conditions is generally beholden, even compliant, to the state, lacking the instinctive desire for democratization as historically demonstrated by its European counterpart.

To be sure, the emergence of the Southeast Asian middle class is not a uniform one. There were, generally speaking, three waves of regional economic development responsible for its emergence. The first wave of economic development, from the 1950s to the 1970s, occurred in Japan, resulting in a Japanese middle class by the mid-1970s. The second economic wave, from the 1960s to the 1980s, swept Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore (popularly known as the “Asian Tigers”) to the higher ground of middle-class comforts. Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and, to a certain degree, the Philippines caught the third wave of economic development from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s (ending abruptly with the 1997 Asian financial crisis); and saw a middle class emergence in their respective countries in the short span of one or two generations. These waves of economic development, enthusiastically encouraged by governments, were the result of economic globalization, increased foreign direct investment (FDI), the region's cheaper labour and abundance of raw materials, and later, banking and portfolio investment liberalization. All these combined to effectively integrate Southeast Asia deeper into the world economy.